Directed by Mike Maryniuk, Matthew Rankin

Synopsis: Cattle Call is a high-speed animated documentary about the art of livestock auctioneering. Structured around the mesmerizing talents of 2007 Man-Sask Auctioneer Champion, Tim Dowler, and using a variety of classic and avant-garde animation techniques (including stop-motion, cut-outs, open-exposures, hole-punching and rubbing lettraset directly on the celluloid) filmmakers Maryniuk and Rankin have tried to create images as dazzlingly abstract, absurd and adrenalizing as the incredible language of auctioneering itself. It is our hope that the film will induce near-bovine levels of dumbfoundedness in all those who gaze upon it.

Distribution Contact: WFG

More Details

RUNTIME: 4 Minutes
GENRE: Documentary, Experimental, Animation
PRODUCTION FORMAT: Super 16mm
LANGUAGE: English
LOCATION: Manitoba
TECHNIQUES: Animated Objects, Paper Cutouts, Hand Process (col)
KEYWORDS: Auctioneer, Livestock, Process, Stop-Motion, Cows, Currency, High-Speed, Text, Absurdity

Director's Statement: "Matthew Rankin says:

“Early in the making of Cattle Call, Mike Maryniuk and I decided that the best way for slow-talkers like us to get into the hyper-speed psychic wavelength of auctioneering was to consume massive amounts of caffeine.

At first, we started our brainstorming sessions by drinking medium-sized "Two-by-Fours" down at the Tim Horton's, which is two creams and four sugars. These soon mutated in to extra-large "Wayne Gretzkies" (nine creams, nine sugars) with several shots of Redbull each and before long the manager of Tim Horton's ordered his staff not to serve us anymore.

Mike and I would be literally tripping over each others' words, yammering out rapid-fire consonants with the same panic-paced iambic pentameter as Tim Dowler himself.

Every image in Cattle Call was dreamed up during these delirious caffeine benders and Mike and I think it's a great method for making movies about auctioneering guys. Be sure to sign up for Mike's step-by-step, sure-to-deliver-results Film Training Manitoba workshop, "How to Get into Sundance by Giving Yourself Diabetes."